BRIEFLY

West Germany's trade surplus narrowed in October, the government said, reflecting the sharply lower value of the dollar against the West German mark. The government statistics office said that on a seasonally adjusted basis the October current account surplus, which reflects trade in goods and services, was more than 1 billion marks ($600 million) lower than in September. It said the merchandise trade surplus eased to 10.1 billion marks ($6.1 billion) from 11.5 billion marks ($7 billion) in September.